Tiny Bookshop review - "Recommend books and learn about people"

• Cosy adventure with lots of side quests
• Small descriptions of real books
• You can pet the dog

Tiny Bookshop is one of those cosy, sort of slower mobile adventures that feel like a complete experience instead of something that you play on your phone to pass the time. It's split into different days, though you can pause them; they feel like complete little chapters with a lot going on.

The days themselves start off the same; you check the newspaper and purchase any mystery boxes of books you want. Often, there are some hints as to what type of books you will be getting within the boxes. You can also read the paper, which sometimes prepares you for things like weekend markets or special events the town might be having.

Then, in Tiny Bookshop, you pick the location you want to set up shop at for the day. The different areas have different prices and often specific characters that tend to frequent those areas. The superstore, for example, has the lead singer of a band who is often looking for inspo. At the beach, you can find Harper, a young child on school holiday, wanting you to collect seashells. You can find that many of these areas have little stories that pop up through the characters you see there. 

There are a lot of little areas when it comes to each of the locations; you can tap around to find items that can be displayed in your shop. These items can help your customers want specific books. There are also different points that you can tap to see little interactions like a bell ringing or a bird flying off. You can even tap the people to say hello! It's all very charming. 

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• And Roger review - "Heartfelt and emotional"

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Apart from tapping everything, you will also need to recommend books to people who appear in your shop. Word bubbles will appear above their heads, which can be tapped before time runs out, so that you can then see what they need. Sometimes they let you know the genre and a good description; other times they aren't quite sure what they'd be looking for, but selecting the right book increases the number of books you can end up selling that day. Some special characters also need suggested books to further their own story.

Tiny Bookshop does have a lot going on; you can put items in your shop that can then be interacted with, so that you can write your own books and collect stamps through achievements. You can journal about the characters that you meet so that you are better supporting the local community, and there are a lot of fun descriptions of real-life books that can be read as you look to recommend something to someone who has a specific taste in mind.

It's not a management sim all about purchasing books cheaply and selling them high, but instead about being a part of the community and learning about the people within this tiny seaside town. The story is what pulled me through day after day, despite the gameplay feeling quite systematic. I've previously played Tiny Bookshop for PC and found that the touch controls were very good, though my fingers were sometimes a bit thick when it came to placing books on the shelf to stock my shop. This had a bit of a learning curve, as I would sometimes tap over books I wanted to keep in my shop by mistake.